听播客学英语 231 a sotry

 　　Recently. I found a fascinating web site. It is the story of Alderley Edge, which is a village south of Manchester. The site contains a lot of maps, pictures and documents about the history of the village, and sound files in which people who live in the village tell about things which happened there long ago.

　　One of these is about the bodysnatchers of Alderley Edge. In the 19th century, the medical schools needed human bodies in order to train student doctors properly. Sometimes, unscrupulous people dug up bodies which had recently been buried, and sold them secretly to the medical schools. This happened once in Alderley Edge, as Brian Hobson tells us.

　　“There’d been a funeral of a lady and a girl and they ( ie the bodysnatchers) must have visited the churchyard, they’d got these two bodies on a hand cart and were taking them to Manchester. And they’d had great difficulty because the grave kept collapsing¹ on them and it had taken them longer than what they thought to get down the road, and they got as far as Whitebarn and it became daylight. So in a field at the side of Whitebarn, there they dug a hole, put them (ie the bodies) in with the idea coming back next day to carry on. Well in the mean time whoever it was was living at Whitebarn Farm at the time, he come down the field and he noticed the soil had been disturbed and he thought poachers had been that night and buried the pheasants in there. So he started unearthing² it and he found a bag, put his hand in and come out with a handful of hair. So they laid in wait for this gang to come back and there was three of them, they caught two of them, one escaped over the fields towards Chorley Hall, and they got the other two. The only thing they could take them to Court on was the fact that they’d nicked (ie stolen) a wedding ring off the woman’s finger. I’ve got all that documented as well, a beautiful story.”

　　MH: “This would be for dissection³ would it?”

　　BH: “Yes, they used to sell the bodies at Manchester University or wherever.”

　　This recording⁴ is made available by kind permission of the copyright holders⁵, Manchester Museum and the National Trust.

1 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

2 unearthing   

发掘或挖出某物( unearth的现在分词 )； 搜寻到某事物，发现并披露

参考例句：

• And unearthing the past often means literally and studying the evidence. 通常，探寻往事在字面上即意味着——刨根究底。
• The unearthing of "Peking Man" was a remarkable discovery. “北京人”的出土是个非凡的发现。

3 dissection   

n.分析；解剖

参考例句：

• A dissection of your argument shows several inconsistencies.对你论点作仔细分析后发现一些前后矛盾之处。
• Researchers need a growing supply of corpses for dissection.研究人员需要更多的供解剖用的尸体。

4 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

5 holders   

支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物

参考例句：

• Slaves were mercilessly ground down by slave holders. 奴隶受奴隶主的残酷压迫。
• It is recognition of compassion's part that leads the up-holders of capital punishment to accuse the abolitionists of sentimentality in being more sorry for the murderer than for his victim. 正是对怜悯的作用有了认识，才使得死刑的提倡者指控主张废除死刑的人感情用事，同情谋杀犯胜过同情受害者。